Tag Archives: Dave Reichert

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So when you read the title, did you think of someone making fun of former Vice-President Al Gore, or did you think of him mocking someone else? In this case it is both — because Al Gore is mocking someone else, specifically Rep. Dave Reichert (R-WA), and succeeding in making a mockery of himself.

Al Gore gathered with Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Rep. Reichert’s Democratic challenger, Darcy Burner, at a Seattle University conference room on October 24th, 2006. At one point, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels said that Rep. Reichert doesn’t believe people are causing global warming. Here is what the Seattle Timesreports that Al Gore responded:

“C’mon! And this man is a United States congressman?” asked Gore. “You know, 15 percent of people believe the moon landing was staged on some movie lot and a somewhat smaller number still believe the Earth is flat. They get together on Saturday night and party with the global-warming deniers.”

That’s a nice little ad hominem attack and appeal to ridicule that Gore launched. I can’t take his argument that seriously if he has to resort to logical fallacies in a debate.

I wish I could have been there, because I’d like to ask Al Gore two questions. Here they are:

2) What percentage of the current global warming of Mars is attributable to human action?

I’d love to hear Al Gore try to explain how human activities on Earth could explain planetary warming on Mars. But there is a very clear answer that has nothing to do with human beings: increased solar activity.

But the inconvenient truth — that the sun is the real force behind global warming — doesn’t sell as many movie tickets, I guess.